Author Archives: admin

October news roundup

Next Repairathon

November 5th at the Wychwood Barns. We will also be running another event in January in Regent Park, details to come.

Repairathon in London

Filthy Rebena, a vintage store in London, Ont. is hosting a repairathon on Thursday, October 26th. Tell your friends in London!

What to do with unwanted sewing machines

People often wish to donate sewing machines to us. We don’t have the capacity for this now, so we are working on a list of places which do. Let us know in the comments below if your are with or know of an organization that could accept sewing machines, especially if they can take machines which may need repairs.

Supplies we’re looking for

Our great volunteers got together to sort and organize all of our supplies, and see what we’re missing. If you’ve got fabric scissors, a seam ripper, an iron, a three-prong extension cord, zippers, or needle-nose pliers you’d be willing to part with, let us know.

Volunteers Barbara, Jenny, Bianca, and Carmel organizing our supplies.

Volunteers wanted

We get asked to run a lot of events, all around and even outside of Toronto. We’d love to do them all. If you’d be interested in volunteering at a repairathon in your neighbourhood, we’d love your help. No experience required.

YIMBY Festival

Our next Repairathon is going to be part of the fantastic YIMBY Festvial. The Yes In My Backyard Festival is…

a celebration of community-based ideas and action in Toronto. The festival is free and open to all, providing a social space for people and groups involved in locally-driven community development to gather, exchange ideas and strategies to affect change, and imagine the future of our city.

At this year’s YIMBY Festival, we’ll welcome 60+ Toronto-based groups involved in community development, civic literacy, neighbourhood improvement, environmental action, arts and culture, and economic development. The Marketplace area will focus on collaborative consumption, featuring organizations and businesses that are helping to strengthen the shareable economy movement in Toronto.

The festival is Saturday, September 27, 11am–4pm at University of Toronto Schools, 371 Bloor Street West, just by Spadina. Bring clean clothing in need of small repairs, not more than 2-3 per person, and don’t forget to thank our generous volunteers. Please do not bring clothing later than 3pm, to give time to complete everything.

Our last event at SharefestTo was a great success. I didn’t post a recap largely because I forgot to take any photos, but you can see photos and comments by everyone else on Twitter. There’s also one photo of us on Facebook. Thanks so much to volunteers Jenny, Barbara, Ruth, Emily, Eva, and Michael (myself).

Other items of note:

  • A Sewing Workshop run by Transition Toronto is coming up on September 11, 7pm to 9pm at the Toronto Tool Library east location, 1803 Danforth Ave. The cost is $8 for Transition members, $10 otherwise
  • The next Repair Cafe is September 13, 10am-2pm at Skills for Change, 791 St. Clair Ave. West
  • The great Really Really Free Market is sadly on hold for the time being. They need some new volunteers, especially anyone with a car or cargo bike. It’s been a monthly event where anyone can leave or get things at no cost. When the event is over any leftover items must be taken to charities, hence the need for transportation. If you are interested in helping, please contact them at rrfmarket@gmail.com.

SharefestTO

SharefestTO is this Wednesday evening! From the Sharefest page,

Come meet local organizations involved in Toronto’s sharing economy and discover how to make sharing part of your lifestyle.
…
We invite you to join us for a night of great food, drinks, conversation and activities.

The Toronto Clothing Repairathon will be there along with the Repair Cafe, AutoShare, Bike Share Toronto, The Toronto Tool Library, Snakes and Lattes, Trade School Toronto, Swapsity, Not Far From the Tree, and quite a few other great organizations. Some will be interactive, such as ours (repairing clothing,) and Swapsity, which is hosting a book swap.

Sharefest is Wednesday, July 16, 6:30pm – 9:30pm, at CSI Annex. That’s 720 Bathurst Street.

See you there!

 

Other upcoming events by others:

  • Transition Toronto is hosting a sewing workshop on September 11. $8 for members, $10 otherwise.
  • Upcoming Repair Cafes
    • Aug 9 at Toronto Reference Library
    • Sep 13 at Skills for Change
    • Oct 18 at Toronto Public Library – Cedarbrae Branch
    • Nov 22 at Skills for Change

Repairathon tomorrow at Brickworks

Just a reminder that we’ll be repairing clothes tomorrow (Saturday) at Evergreen Brickworks, as part of 100 in 1 Day.  We’ll be there from 9am-12:30am, alongside their fantastic farmers’ market. Also don’t forget, you can you can get there by bike, TTC from Davisville, or free bus from Broadview station. I believe we will be at the south end near the entrances from the parking lot.

Bring clean clothing in need of small repairs, not more than 2-3 per person, and don’t forget to thank our generous volunteers.

Other items to note

  • If you can’t make it to the Repairathon, check out the Really Really Free Market, which is also tomorrow.
  • A week after the Repairathon is the next Repair Café, this time at North York Central Library. Their events are great, and they do repairs of everything, not just clothing.
  • The Toronto Environmental Alliance is running a Waste-Free Challenge. They’ve posted 10 simple actions you can take right now to reduce waste, and they’ve got prizes too 🙂

 

 

June 7 at Evergreen Brickworks

Our next event will be our first one at Evergreen Brickworks. This will be part of 100 in 1 Day, with many events intended to make our cities better places, in four Canadian cities happening all at the same time. You can see the full list of Toronto events on their website.

We’ll be there Saturday June 7th, from 9am-12:30am, alongside their fantastic farmers’ market. For those of you who haven’t been, Evergreen Brickworks is also a great nature spot, and has all sorts of other activities. You can get there by bike, TTC from Davisville, or free bus from Broadview station.

Bring clean clothing in need of small repairs, not more than 2-3 per person, and don’t forget to thank our generous volunteers. See you there!

Wychwood Recap and upcoming events

First, a note on upcoming events:

  • The Repair Cafe is having their next event (and first anniversary) tomorrow (Saturday).
  • I expect we’ll have two events soon, on May 25th and June 7th; details to come. If you’re interested in volunteering, please join our volunteer mailing list.

Our first event of 2014 was huge. We were busy from the moment we started until we packed up. The Stop’s Farmers’ Market is bustling. Volunteers were Barbara, Jenny, Ruth, Nicole, and myself (Michael). Thanks to all of them, and to Ruth and Nicole for joining us for the first time.

Thanks also to all those who bought us volunteers great food and drinks from the market 🙂

Here are some photos from the event.

everybody hard at work

everybody hard at work

"customer" with Barbara (on the right)

“customer” with Barbara (on the right)

"customers" with Nicole (on the right)

“customers” with Nicole (on the right)

"customer" with Ruth (on the right)

“customer” with Ruth (on the right)

"customers" with Ruth

“customers” with Ruth

doll surgery

doll surgery

"customers" with their doll

“customers” with their doll

IMG_7447

pink glove: fixed!

"customer" with Barbara

“customer” with Barbara

Jenny (on the left) with "customer"

Jenny (on the left) with “customer”

Reminder: Wychwood, Tomorrow

Just a quick reminder that our first Repairathon for 2014 is tomorrow, at the Wychwood Barns. Details are on the original post. Thanks to the attention we’ve had including blogTO and CBC’s Metro Morning (I was interviewed early this morning), I expect we’ll be quite busy.

We’ll probably have one event in May and another in June, so you’ll be hearing about those in the weeks go come. In the meantime, there’s also the next Repair Cafe on May 10th.

See you tomorrow 🙂

The Repairathon is Back for April

The Clothing Repairathon took a bit of a hiatus for the winter, but it’s time for a new season. On April 26th, we’ll be back at Artscape Wychwood Barns, alongside The Stop’s Farmers’ Market, the same great venue as our very first event. We’ll be repairing clothing from 8:30am to 12:30pm.

Bring clean clothing in need of small repairs, not more than 2-3 per person, and don’t forget to thank our generous volunteers.

Speaking of which, we’re looking for more volunteers, for the April event and others. Please let us know if you’d be interested in helping with repair or event coordination. There’s no commitment necessary.

Also, don’t forget other great events happening soon:

Lastly, it looks like our sister group in Edmonton has been doing great. Check out this video of them on the news.

St Lawrence Market Recap

I’m a little behind in posting this, but we had a fantastic event at St Lawrence Market on September 28th. But first, news from elsewhere:

The St Lawrence Market went well from the beginning. Shortly after I arrived to set up, I was interviewed for 680 News and we were heard on the radio about an hour later. Unfortunately I haven’t found any recording. Photos from the event will also be in the upcoming issue of Snapd Downtown Toronto.

Our volunteers for the event were Michael (myself), Jenny, Mardy, Bebi, Bianca, Ernie, and Stephan. Thanks so much to all of you for making this happen. Also thanks very much to our generous “customers,” who provided us with some excellent fruit and pastries from the market.

Stephan, Jenny, Mardy, Bebi, Bianca, and Michael, hard at work. We need a bigger table :-)

Stephan, Jenny, Mardy, Bebi, Bianca, and Michael, hard at work. We need a bigger table 🙂

A customer learns to sew :-)

A customer learns to sew 🙂

Ernie with a customer and his repaired bag

Ernie with a customer and his repaired bag

Bebi showing how to use a sewing machine

Bebi showing how to use a sewing machine

Mardy with a customer and her repaired purse

Mardy with a customer and her repaired purse

Thanks also to Renata Janiszewska, who chose to thank us with a piece of her artwork, shown below. Created in 2013.

Untitled artwork

 

Lastly, we may be taking it a bit slow over the next few months. As always, we’ll post here on our blog when we have a date for the next event.